Snowdrop (sculpture)

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Snowdrop (Swedish: Snöklockan; French: La Perce-Neige) is a standing female nude sculpture in plaster by Per Hasselberg, created in 1881. A snowdrop flower sits at the woman’s feet, and the title also signals her passage from childhood to womanhood; a sixteen-year-old Italian girl was the model. It was shown at the 1881 Paris Salon and was the only Swedish work to receive an honorable mention, which boosted Hasselberg’s career. In 1883 the Nationalmuseum in Sweden commissioned a marble copy for 6,000 kroner, and this version won a gold medal at the 1883 Salon. The statue became very popular, with many replicas made for public and private display. A bronze version was cast for Stockholm’s Mariatorget, the city’s first non-honorific public statue, funded by director CR Lamm at Ludvigsberg and unveiled in November 1900.